Demographics

The Masonic Temple Of Detroit

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Via Curbed Detroit. (via David Thompson)

70 photos of the abandoned, foreboding Temple.  Mysterious symbols and a certain sad grandeur that’s come to represent Detroit these days.

-Photographer Ben Marcin has a series called ‘Last House Standing.’ Solitary row-homes…the only ones left on the block.

Also On This Site: From Buzzfeed: ‘Why I Bought A House in Detroit For $500:’

How did Detroit get here? Very comprehensive and easy to navigate.

More from Megan McArdle on the behavior that comes with pension bonuses.Charlie LeDuff, Detroit’s populist, citizen journalist’s youtube channel here.  At least he’s sticking around.

Are you looking at beautiful photos and feeling sorry for Detroit, and yourself?  See Time Magazine’s photo essay by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre (less porn-like, more thoughtful).

Hipster hope, artists, collectivists and small business types can’t save it either:  A Short Culture Wars Essay-Two Links On Detroit & ‘Ruin Porn’

GM is not a municipality, but good money got put in, probably after bad and it reeks of politics: From The Detroit News: ‘How The Treasury, GM Stock Deal Got Done’

Modernism At The Movies.

Pennsylvania Dialects-Pittsburgh Vs. Philadelphia: From Slate-‘Where Yinz At’

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Full piece here.

Our author calls Pennsylvania the most linguistically fascinating state in the country, with five comprehensive dialects.

There’s this opening paragraph:

‘The 4 hour and 46 minute drive from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh is marked by several things: barns, oddly timed roadwork projects, four tunnels that lend themselves to breath-holding competitions, turnpike rest stops featuring heat-lamped Sbarro slices and overly goopy Cinnabon.’

You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced Breezewood, Pa, the ‘Town Of Motels,’ after eating a few heat-lamped slices of Sbarro some hours before.

Here are some examples of central Pennsylvania dialect:

1. ‘It’s all (pronounced awl)’–It’s all gone.

2. ‘The lawn needs mowed‘–The lawn needs to be mowed.

3. ‘Slippy‘–Slippery

4. ‘Hoagie‘ (the ‘o’ sound more like ‘owe’)-Submarine sandwich

For the sake of pronunciation:

5. ‘It’s hawt owt‘–It’s hot out.

6. ‘Are yu’uns goin’ to the maul?’–Pardon me, will you (plural) be attending the nearby indoor commercial center?

–On that note, here’s an interview with William Labov (mentioned in the article) at the University of Pennsylvania on the changing nature of American English in relation to economic and political factors.

Depending on your ambitions, you really don’t want to be too local:

‘You’re dead on Madison avenue if you sound like New York‘

From The NY Times, Via Via Media: ‘California Bill Seeks Campus Credit for Online Study’

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Full piece here.

Mead’s piece here.

What is the purpose of waiting around for a semester or two to get the one class you need, or sitting in a lecture hall with over a few hundred other students, or having to drive after work and sit in traffic to attend a night class…when you can get the same credit another way?

California is trying to address the problem:

‘The new legislation would use that panel to determine which 50 introductory courses were most oversubscribed and which online versions of those courses should be eligible for credit. Those decisions would be based on factors like whether the courses included proctored tests, used open-source texts — those available free online — and had been recommended by the American Council on Education. A student could get credit from a third-party course only if the course was full at the student’s home institution, and if that institution did not offer it online.

Despite the element of faculty control that would be built into the process, it is not likely to sit well with faculty.

“I think it’s going to be very controversial,” said Josh Jarrett, a higher education officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which finances research on online education. “The decision to award credit has been one of those solemn things that the faculty hold very dear. But it could be a catalyst for widespread change, driving community colleges where they turn away a lot of students to move quickly to put more of their own courses online, and charge tuition, to keep their students from taking the courses elsewhere.”

There is often a guild mentality amongst professors and teachers, who take the transmission of knowledge seriously as they ought to.  There are standards to maintain, and a free spirit of inquiry and rigor to follow and impart.  It’s one of the core missions of academia.

In this case, though, responding to market signals, the needs of students, and adapting to new technology will advance the core educational mission if done right.

California leading the way again?  Because they have to?

uploaded by mattbucher

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Analagous to old media? What to change and what to keep: From The Arnoldian Project: ‘Architecture, Campus, And Learning To Become’

Should you get a college degree, probably, but you also probably shouldn’t lose sight of why you’re going and divorce yourself entirely from the cost:  Gene Expression On Charles Murray: Does College Really Pay Off?…Charles Murray In The New Criterion: The Age Of Educational Romanticism…

The libertarian angle, getting smart, ambitious people off of the degree treadmill:  From The American Interest: Francis Fukuyama Interviews Peter Thiel-’A Conversation With Peter Thiel’ I think it’s going too far, trying to apply libertarian economics onto education, but Milton Friedman on Education is thought-provoking.
Walter Russell Mead takes a look at the blue model (the old progressive model) from the ground up in NYC to argue that it’s simply not working.  Check out his series at The American Interest.  He has a big vision with some holes in it, but it’s one that embraces change boldly.